Bay 12 Games Forum

While it's probably possible in theory to have an organism make carbon fibers, it would probably require "hacking" the bits of the cell that create nucleic or amino acids rather than modifying the actual genes.
Genetics are brutally complex, and the entire body is basically dedicated to manufacturing complex molecules from blood cells to hair to genes themselves.

However, it is specialized in certain types, at their base mainly nucleic acids and amino acids. 80-90% of what the body makes is one of those at its base, and the rest is pretty much lipids. You might as well say (to continue the analogy) "This factory can make HAM radios, which are pretty complex; why can't it make cars?" Or perhaps a better way to put it would be "This factory can make computers, why can't it make coins? They're a lot simpler and use one of the same materials!" Now imagine that you had to retrofit a computer factory to make coins with scarcely any idea of how mints or metallurgy worked, and none on how to industrialize it.

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My point was not only that 'it's the future, anything can happen', but that 'it's the future, and a forum game, anything can happen'. Oh, and that anything feasible can happen, not anything. Complicated bioengineering? Feasible.
But we need some limits. There is little point in playing a puzzle in which you can answer anything just by making-up a new answer which needs no justification.

Exactly what I was saying.

This isn't a minimalistic forum game. I and some others are operating under the assumption that the laws of the real world are in effect. So we're assuming different things.
You're also assuming that carbon-fiber organisms are feasible.
What proof is there that this is not a minimalist forum game? The premise so far can pretty much be summarised by "bioengineering". There aren't really any examples, we haven't been provided with our limitations, what little we do know about the setting is that apparently the speed of light is not so much of a problem anymore. For all we know we can use a quantum-entanglement nervous system and a spacial-folding digestive tract...

You seem to be arguing both sides; are you practicing for Debate or politics or something? But putting that aside, the game doesn't seem minimalistic to me, and if it was the GM would have probably stepped in once we started discussing complex biochemistry and such.

THAT'S MY POINT.
There are no examples. Therefore, there's nothing that we can base our work on. We're not just building a car out of HAM radio parts--we're doing so with little understanding of how an internal combustion engine works.
Prior to scales there were no scales. Prior to blood there was no blood. Prior to multicellular organisms and even genes they did not exist. And prior to gene-splicing, the likes of today's genetically engineered hybrids existed only in fiction. Once you realise that an explosion can cause motion, and that motion can cause explosions, and internal combustion engine is just a matter of trial and error...

True enough. However, two things:
1. Scales had precedent; they didn't come full-fledged from nowhere. Same with blood, cells, and genes. In addition, those changes, especially the basic ones, took many thousands or millions of generations to "develop"; since we're doing something about as radical as when cells started making proteins, it would take a heck of a long time to puzzle out how. Again, possible but not practical.

Of course not. The nice thing about ectothermy is, there is an actual template for it in nature already. In fact, there's dozens, besides the fact that it's likely more a process of removing endothermy than adding anything.
And yet the cold-blooded community and the warm-blooded community do not mix. There is more similarity between an elephant and a pademelon than there is between any warm-blood and cold-blooded creatures. The idea that you could just stick the two together and not have a disaster is bizarre.

Firstly, what's a "pademelon"?
Secondly, your logic is faulty. The reason elephants and mice are more similar than either is to a crocodile is obviously not because of their endothermy, because robins are endotherms and closer to crocodiles than mammals. There are taxa with warmed blood and taxa without. By your argument, we can't incorporate any genes from outside the mammals, which is disproved because it's been done in real life with far more disparate taxa (pigs with cnidarian [specifically jellyfish] genes, anyone? Or potatoes with jellyfish genes?).

Primitive synapsids were highly mammalian and ectotherms. Besides that, there's actually not that much difference between chordate and especially tetrapod taxa, biochemically.
And yet there is an enormous difference between them, such are the ways of relativity...

Not so much, actually. Most differences between even nematodes and newborns are skin deep.

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starting from scratch
There is no evidence that anyone here wants to start from scratch(although now that you mention it, I would love to dive into some alien stuff...

That's what we'd have to do if we wanted to do something so utterly unlike anything that exists in known organisms, however.

There's no such enzymes that I'm aware of. Point to an enzyme that manipulates carbon atoms directly.
Blood gets pretty cosy with oxygen and anti-bodies should be good for a lark...

I'm not quite certain how antibodies work, but they work with antigens, not free-gloating carbon atoms. And haemoglobin's oxygen attachment works by the same principles as oxidized metal; basically, blood temporarily rusts. Besides, neither of those has the dexterity to attach atoms to each other.

BECAUSE THERE'S NO BASIS FOR THAT AT ALL IN NATURE.
Nature as a word doesn't really have a definition, and giving it one would spoil most of its use. But everything from hair to spiderweb to teeth suggest that organic systems can produce some very odd compounds with very odd structures.

Weird, yes. However, teeth, hair, and webs all have one thing in common: They're (primarily) made of proteins and other such compounds. Carbon fibers are not. That's pretty much the basis of my argument about why it's not possible.

However, it does mean that (assuming we could make it), it would take years if not generations of experimentation to do.
It is the future, those years if not generations exist. Would you presume that in the midst of the biological revolution that nobody is interested in microscopic biological factories?

Have we heard of any such experiments? If there are already genes invented which create carbon fibers, and they're public-domain or we have access to them, than by all means go ahead; I'm not willing to base our experiments on such genes existing until we know they do, however.

That's like saying you could turn a HAM radio into an automobile by tinkering with it a bit--technically true, but not remotely practical.
I rather suspect that you would need to get a power supply from somewhere else, and most folk would place certain capacity requirements on their definition of an automobile. And by all accounts it is practical to build a car out of red dirt...

Oh? How so?

Yeah, most of that stuff you're talking about was responding to you "just being an ass about 'Organic' and 'found in nature'". But you know darn well that that's not the kind of plasma I meant.
And yet for some reason folk are still trying to do cold fusion...

Not sure what you mean by this. Care to elaborate?

the future anything can happen
Except fashion sense...

Ha ha!

And I contend it's not.
Contrary argument!

No, summary of my position like he summarized his.

Because, not only are there natural templates for ectothermy, it's more the lack of endothermy than anything?
And yet endothermy is useless unless you adapt your whole body to rely upon it, there are reasons why fevers are so dangerous...

True enough. We'd need to do multiple changes, but (unlike carbon fibers) we have examples of organisms which have those changes.

...I'm still not sure how that's working. Are you basically having carbon atoms from somewhere pouring into the scaffold and hoping they bind together into carbon fibers?
We can already make carbon fibres, we know that they will form when given the correct environment, it is just a matter of refining the process...

Actually, in this context it's more a matter of coding those processes into living organisms. And, of course, getting the free carbon, but that's comparatively simple.

An interesting theory, except that (to start with) there's nothing getting the carbon atoms to "want" to go into the scaffolding or bind into carbon fibers once there.
Using theory as an insult, really, I am disappointed... The bonding would just be a matter of teasing the molecules, get a molecule to bond to both carbon molecules then break down...

I'm a bit saddened, too, actually, but "hypothesis" seemed a bit unwieldy and "guess" too derogatory.
I'm unaware of any molecules which can "tease" atoms like that.

Last try to be concise

And I'll try the same.

The crux of my feelings is that it is possible. Therefore what is the basis of denying it?
That it's too complex? That isn't a good enough reason- we're a geneticist, complexity is what we do. We'd have to face the same complexity in whatever other undertakings we attacked.

No, not the complexity--the lack of any machinery that we could base it off of. The automobile wasn't so much invented as pieced together from a bunch of inventions that already existed; Ford would have been SOL if (for the sake of argument) Benz hadn't had access to steam engines, metallurgy, the wheel, etc. There are processes to make carbon nanotubes, I'll grant you that, but modern nanomanufacturing doesn't work with proteins and such--it works with "anything it can get its hands on," basically. That's like adapting a process to make a car from a full factory to just a few welders and an anvil.

That there isn't an example in nature? Would you attack gas-bladder flight with the same vehemence?

No, because there are already-known ways to make bladders and to make the gases to lift them. I'd be opposed to the specific gas bags if the components were alien to life-as-we-know-it, but not otherwise. The problem is that nanotube assembly can't be broken down into "steps" or "devices" similar to anything extant.

Since it is possible isn't impossible, in and of itself, this argument has nothing to stand on- it has as much relevance to the conversation as my hair color.

Might as well argue that we could make an automobile in Lordship. Hey--it isn't impossible!

That because there isn't an example in nature, it would be too hard to start from a smaller base? See the complexity problem.

It would be too hard to start from absolutely no base. We're not at Square 1--we're starting work on the board.

That the time required to start from this smaller base would be prohibitive? Again, see the complexity problem. Any of our modifications would, in real life, take a very long time to get functional.

True; however, you're missing the scale. "Borrowing" would take much less time to get right than making entirely new stuff out of whole cloth.

Nit-picking arguments:

Ham radios
@RAM
You lost me on the first bit. We'd be making the fibers in the fetus and ever so slowly as we grow. Is the mouse in your metaphor literal?

I believe the mouse was meant to represent various other things the cells would be doing. Like making an enzyme, or cellular respiration, or something.

@GWG
I made a provision in my metaphor where the car could be made out of recycled ham radio parts. What is this hacking that you speak of? 

Getting the most basic biochemical processes of the body (those of the cell) to do something new.
Unrelated example thereof: UAA codes for "Stop". If we wanted it to instead code for, say, Lysine, we would need to "hack" the bit of the cells which determines what the code does. Only perhaps it would need to be a level deeper, since we're adding a new process rather than just changing an old one.

@GWG
Yes but to what minutia? To what esoteric level of detail will we each have to prove our ideas should another call on it? My definition of feasible is possible. Until we see just how much effect the true complexity of our changes has on gameplay, that's a good line to have. You agree can't make the assertion it's not impossible; that is equivalent to being feasible at this point..

My idea is basically "until it's shown to be possible". You and maybe RAM are the only ones who are convinced that it is possible. 10ebbor10, myself, possibly RAM, etc, are posing severe reasons why it would not be so.
Basically, the level depends on what you're trying to do. If you suggest that we add (say) ultraviolet vision and someone calls BS, point to the bumblebee or another organism that can see UV. If you want something like gas bags, explain that it would be a bladder or cavity such as is common and that it would be filled with hydrogen produced by symbiotic bacteria (or, if you want to get fancy, by the creature itself, with genes taken from such bacteria).

@GWG
Actually, in your metaphor, we would know exactly how an internal combustion engine works, and an intimate knowledge of ham radio parts, and there's nothing literally preventing us from building the car out of parts aside from not having already done so before.

Except that we'd be going from a MUCH more limited tool-base. As noted, the people figuring out how to make carbon nanotubes didn't restrict themselves to chemicals which could be made by/were safe for organisms, and they also didn't restrict themselves to doing the reactions in conditions that would be safe/possible to create within organisms. Oh, and since there's no proteins that do anything like that in any organisms, we'd need to make all-new enzymes, a process which doubtless takes plenty of trial-and-error since we don't even understand what all makes a protein fold any more than we can correctly determine the weather a month from now.

Ok, except no one has actually modified a human being to be an ectotherm before. There would be an untold amount of issues at first, and if possible is defined by knowing exactly how it would be done, you must theorize and tackle every problem that would present itself as our ectothermic primate is formed.

The difference is, we have a starting point. Take these ectotherms, add whatever makes them ectothermic to humans. Not simple, perhaps, but easier than making a whole new kind of cellular machine from scratch.

That's..because..tetrapods are chordates..?

Yes, they are!
What relevance does this have to our current argument? And where did this come up as a reason that was needed for my case or yours?

Starting from scratch
@RAM
We'd be modifying the gene of an existing enzyme and re-inserting the modified gene sequence of the modified enzyme, separate from the original. Do I need to be a geneticist to play this game?

No, you just need to be able to use Google, Wikipedia, or something to find an example of an enzyme or biological process which does anything that could be homologous to manipulating individual carbon atoms to do whatever you want.
There aren't any. You admitted such a few posts back. Remember when you said finding such a thing was "an impossible task"?

@GWG
The point of working with larger molecules which each contain a few of the carbon atoms, in a specific arrangement- don't have to work with individual atoms. The enzymes would be used to snip, which they do with some pretty good accuracy.

And how do we get the carbon atoms into little strings or whatever?
Oh, and would it be boorish to point out that this is different than how we make carbon fibers currently?

@GWG
Yes, trying to make a joke- it was a diction argument, you happened to present additional diction that could be argued in the petty way I'd originally started the thread with. I did so because ha.
To take your argument presented here seriously- that carbon fiber is equivalent plasma, magma & uranium as far as production & use inside a body- my previous statement stands:

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you're mixing minerals/aggregations with elements & thermic properties

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I'm still fuzzy on your point, so rather than argue against something you're probably not supporting I'll ask you to clarify.

What is reasonably possible
@GWG
I disagree with your conclusion, based upon the arguments you've presented. Already discussed those at the top.

Same here.

@GWG
Was asking you to explain why thermal conductivity would be an issue in an internal tissue.

So out of context I don't even know what you're talking about. Does this go back to ectothermy?

Carbon fiber drawing
@RAM
No...no nanomachines..
The scaffolding and the carbon are one and the same until enzymes snip them apart. I cannot answer this question because I am not, in fact, a bioengineer from the future. It's use is in creating the carbon fiber in the first place.
Meh I figure there would be a variety of ways to end the fiber.

While I can see some very rough parallels, they're to things which are a good bit more complex and less indiscriminately reactive than carbon.

@GWG
No, I even drew a picture! 

Not a very clear one, as indicated by my inability to understand it without explanation you did not give.

A few of the carbon atoms would already be arranged as part of the 'scaffolding' molecule- the trick would be getting these scaffolding molecules to bind with eachother, & magically bind the carbon arrangments they have to their partner's carbons.

You're not actually helping your argument much.

But hey, guess what, I'm not a biochemist. I haven't invented a biochemical process to create carbon fiber in real life.

I'm not asking you to be, I'm asking you to point to one--ONE--example of something similar enough that such a biochemist could start there and end with a nanotube-making organism before they were nine feet under.

My resistance to sitting down and typing these out is outright high by now. It's taking up too much of my time, and the frustration is obscene. It's not that I can't be wrong, but your arguments so far haven't been the right ones. If you present why it is literally impossible, I'd drop the idea like a zombie baby. But requiring me to know and explain precisely how a theoretical possibility would be made fact in order for it to be adopted is not something I'd like to see the game's rules be based upon. 

The problem is, you haven't convinced me that it's more of a possibility than interstellar travel or a lunar colony by 2030.

Btw, I'd say the easiest way to implement the carbon-fiber bone thing would be to design an organism that could take advantage of carbon fiber that's introduced into the organism- something like special food. But this might be tangled up in the morality bit

And if it wasn't for the morality/legality bit, I would be perfectly fine with that plan. Organisms assimilate far odder things from their food/environment.

Ribcage and most internal organs. But that only becomes a problem in the cold, and not heat. (ie, when temperature is centered on the internal organs and you really want to prevent it from radiating away to the outside.)

Fun fact: Metal feels cold because of its high thermal conductivity.